Some great money reads from around the web.
I have written before on Monevator about my in-built thrifty disposition, and how it probably veers towards tightness [1].
For this reason I was thrilled to see The Accumulator explaining how he saves money [2] this week. It’s vitally useful information that I just can’t share from experience.
My problem is spending it!
I have a soft spot for occasional black cabs after midnight and good food. Otherwise, the only thing I find easy to buy are equities.
Perhaps I’m like Warren Buffett in that regard – he used to refuse his wife a new sofa on the grounds that it would cost $1 million, after taking compound interest into account. (Alas I don’t share his prodigious mental abilities, and I can’t quite match his track record. At least not yet…)
This week I was reminded why equities are worth splashing out on through a short Forbes article [3]. In it we learn that if you’d:
…skipped the purchase of a $5,700 Apple PowerBook G3 250 in 1997 and put the money into Apple stock, and your shares would now be worth $330,563.
Even relatively new customers can find reasons for regret. If you’d skipped the purchase of an Apple Xserve G5 in 2005 for $3,999 and bought Apple stock instead, your investment would now be worth $33,877.
The data is based on Kyle Conroy’s clever table [4] of Apple products versus stock gains. It’s been around for a while, but now that Apple is the second most valuable company in the world, the numbers are becoming crazy. As someone who only ever buys Apple-made computers, I can relate.
Obviously few investments will do as well as Apple. Index investors [5] don’t even try to catch the best ones, but instead sensibly settle for market returns. Either way, over time buying equities will make you richer, not poorer.
I’m getting a little better at spending money as I get older. One of the scant consolations of seeing a close family member becoming mentally disabled overnight [6] is it puts everything into perspective.
But I’m not throwing money at toys for boys, and I’m not convinced by the spend it on experiences [7] argument, either.
I’d have failed as a human being if the only thing that gave me pleasure was receiving my dividend cheques, as J.D. Rockefeller famously quipped.
But on a relative basis, I’m happy to save my buyer’s remorse for consumables, and my retail therapy for my stock broking account.
From the money blogs
- Buffett on gold fondling and elephant hunting – Investor Caffeine [8]
- Quit sniveling! Making money doing a job you hate – Len Penzo [9]
- Planning for uneven retirement spending – Oblivious Investor [10]
- Five powerful ways to teach kids about money – Wealth Pilgrim [11]
- Taking some quick and some slow profits – UK Value Investor [12]
- There are limits to human ingenuity – Simple in Suffolk [13]
- Pondering my portfolio – A Grain of Salt [14]
- Four screens for UK stock investors – iii blog [15]
- Market confidence, tricks and placebos – The Psy-Fi blog [16]
- 5 tips on evaluating your investment performance – The Digerati Life [17]
- 10 ways to save money on groceries – Canadian Finance blog [18]
- Dumb fund ideas: First Trust Smartphone Index – Amateur Asset Allocator [19]
Mainstream money and investing articles
- Why rich people do stupid things – Motley Fool [20]
- Forbes has updated its list of 1,210 billionaires – Forbes [21]
- Regional income inequality: UK most divided – The Economist [22]
- Don’t pump up the oil bandwagon – Wall Street Journal [23]
- Roundup of the various new retail-friendly corporate bonds – FT [24]
- Commission surges ahead of ban [Gotta love financial advisers [25]] – FT [26]
- [Some] fund managers slash fees for private investors – FT [27]
- UK mortgage lending falls 29% in January – Telegraph [28]
- Public sector pension reforms: Who’ll lose out? – Telegraph [29]
- In praise of Nick Train [a fund manager I much admire] – Independent [30]
- Barclays’ 3.25% cash ISA is current market leader – Independent [31]
- How to save money on motoring – The Guardian [32]
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